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openness—not exactly innocence, he was a French Quarter kid, after all. But he didn’t condemn any human activity on the basis of being different (a convenient attitude for a child whose only “parent” was a gay uncle), and he wanted to experience things. He’d insisted on going to the witches’ circle, though Uncle Jimmy had scoffed and Sheila said the whole thing gave her the creeps.
    “Good-bye, chickens,” said Dee-Dee when the three piled out the door. “Bibbity-bobbity-boo, now.”
    Kenny said, “They say, ‘blessed be,’” and Skip had no idea how he knew.
    “Well, blessed be the free-of-sneezes.”
    Dee-Dee was like that—the perennial joker. But the simple fact was, Layne’s allergy threatened the relationship. After what the kids had been through—their father had first deserted, then their mother had died—he truly would sacrifice his first love in years before he’d find Angel a nice home in the country.
    The witches, whom Skip had met on a case, were having the ritual at the home of a new member who lived in Old Metairie, about as nonthreatening a neighborhood as existed anywhere— the kind with bikes parked in the driveways and shaggy sheep dogs lying on the porches.
    The new witch was named Melinda, and nothing, to the best of Skip’s memory, like anyone else in the coven. She was a chirping, bird-boned woman in her thirties, with short blond hair and tiny features. She wore white shorts and a black T-shirt that looked as if it had been ironed.
    The other witches—all women—awaited in a living room full of Hurwitz-Mintz furniture. There wasn’t a single thing to indicate an affinity with the occult, until Kit, the high priestess, started unpacking small objects from a basket.
    She spread a scarf on the coffee table to serve as an altar cloth, and placed on it candles, a chalice, a knife in a case, and a few other more-or-less commonplace items, including a plate of cookies.
    She said, “Kenny and Layne, do you know anything about all this?”
    Kenny nodded, all eagerness. He had said something once about learning about paganism in school, and Skip suspected he’d also read up on it.
    Layne, in contrast, blushed and shook his head.
    “Well, don’t worry. It’s not spooky or anything. Every coven’s different, but in ours, which we call the Cauldron of Cerridwen, by the way, we wear different-colored robes at different times of the year.”
    “Why?” It was Kenny, of course.
    “You know about the three aspects of the goddess?”
    He shook his head.
    “Maiden, mother, and crone—and the year follows the goddess’s phases. In spring, we think of the maiden, and so we wear white—then red in summer, and black in winter.”
    They left to put on their white robes, and when they returned, the atmosphere had subtly changed, grown more contemplative.
    Kit said, “Everyone ready?”
    They were silent a moment, and then Melinda lit a white candle, saying what appeared to be a prayer to the East. Then someone lit a red one, for the South, and so it went until all the directions had been invoked.
    Skip had seen this before, and she found it calming and energizing at the same time. She looked at Layne and Kenny. Kenny, wide-eyed, might as well have been at Disneyland. And Layne, the sophisticated, hyperintelligent pal of Jimmy Dee Scoggin, was soaking it up, though slightly wary.
    Kit picked up the knife and used it to cut out an imaginary circle to serve as a temple. And after that was done, Skip thought she felt the atmosphere change again. She couldn’t have described it, really, except to say it felt cozier, as if a real circle existed.
    The high priestess lit two more candles, invoking deities associated with the healing arts, Brigid and Asclepius.
    “In Cerridwen’s Cauldron,” she said, “we sometimes plan the ritual and sometimes we invent it on the spot. We thought since we didn’t know Layne, we wouldn’t plan this one. So we can’t tell you what to expect.”
    “You